


Hands

by ashmeera101



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashmeera101/pseuds/ashmeera101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can tell a lot about a person from their hands.”</p><p>In which Éponine is open with herself, and finds that Combeferre doesn't run away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to mention that Descartes is Combeferre's cat - he wanted a cat named Descartes so much that when he got a calico and realised that it was female he was too attached to the name to let it go.

“You can tell a lot about a person from their hands.”

They were in the living room, curled up on their respective couches with the tv on low volume in the background. It was raining outside, heavy enough for Descartes to abandon her regular spot on the hi fi set and claim one of the other sofas, squeezing herself practically in between the cushion and the back rest. Her purring was almost loud enough to rival the pattering of raindrops on the porch tile.

The statement was innocent enough. They’d been talking about how his hands were almost permanently ink stained and bandaged from paper cuts, so much so that certain bits of skin were unnaturally thick. How Bahorel’s knuckles were constantly bruised and slightly bloody and despite Joly’s worry that they’d get infected and gangrenous how he’d never bandage them, how Feuilly’s stubby fingers would fly over the piano on the rare occasion he played, how Jehan’s delicate, thin hands could braid a fishtail in less than a minute.

She’d let him talk, marvelling in the detail of his descriptions. How he’d taken notice of his friends in ways they probably never realised. The way his eyes lit up when he spoke about them, the little smile that tugged at his lips when he recalled a particularly fond memory – it tugged at her.

But they were getting to dangerous ground here.

She nodded non-committally at him as she pretended to pour over her literature notes, hyper aware at the way he was looking at her. Sneaking a peek, she met those eyes, those dangerous eyes that were equally gentle and questioning, the eyes that could make you tell a person anything if you wanted to or not.

“Your hands.” His voice was a whisper now, slightly unsure. “I’ve never seen them.”

She ran her palms over her fingerless gloves, the ones she never took off in front of people. The same ones that he was now looking at, the ones clothing sweaty palms, fingers clutching her papers as if they would protect her against the sea of questions in his eyes, or the impending sense of doom that gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

“Not now,” she heard herself say, and his eyes fell to his own hands. She felt terrible, but she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him.

“Not now. I… I’m not ready. But when I am, you’ll be the first to know.” He looked back up at her slowly, his small smile belying the hope in his eyes.

He’d wait for her. He would always wait for her.

*

Ironically, the day she finally told him was yet another rainy spring evening, nestled under her quilt that smelled like fresh linen and the inside of his wardrobe, as she watched him thumb through that extremely well worn copy of Descartes Meditations. She'd thought he had it memorised, but apparently he kept the book around for sentimental reasons, and to check up on things that might have slipped his mind. He was also a chronic book hoarder, so there was that too.

Ordinary people would have forgotten the conversation, brushed it aside as just another April shower induced burst of emotion, but not Combeferre. He never said a word, carried on with life in his calm, sure manner after that day, never pressing her for more. Content with waiting for her to approach him. But she's noticed his eyes lingering on her gloves for a fraction of a second longer than he usually did, and on more than one occasion since then. And after, he would meet her gaze briefly before looking away, as if embarrassed. 

He was trying. Why shouldn't she?

Gathering the quilt around her, she shifted to his couch slowly, not wanting to startle him. He only looked up when she was already sinking in, feet curled under the quilt to avoid the draft. 

“Hey,” he said, half-smiling as he set the book down. She was distracted for a moment by his sandy brown hair, all messed up and curling slightly around the ears, fighting the urge to run her fingers through them, to feel if it was really as soft as it looked. The fringe hung low over his forehead, almost at his eyebrows now. He really needs a haircut. 

“What did you say?”

She snapped out of it, focusing on his slightly confused eyes instead. God, she had to stop thinking aloud. 

“N... nothing, just spaced out for a bit.”

“Oh, okay then.” The urge to kiss that adorable smile was taking over her brain. “What did you want?”

You. 

“Do you remember, two Sundays ago, when we talked about hands?” Something in his eyes shifted, and his gaze intensified as he nodded slowly. 

“Yes I do.”

A heartbeat of silence. “I'm ready.”

She took a deep breath, steadying herself before slowly pulling off her right glove. Then the left. The chill of the room tickled her naked palms as she looked back up at him, daring him to speak. 

He didn't. He sat there, body turned towards her, but his eyes were on her hands, clasped tight in her lap. The knot in the pit of her stomach began to twist the longer the silence lasted, and everything she feared would happen began to play in her mind. He was disgusted, terrified even. Couldn't even bring himself to speak at how grotesque it was, she was. She almost didn't even hear the whisper, gentle as anything she would ever hear.

“May I?”

She looked up at him, her confusion probably all over her face for him to see. His eyes were jewels in the semi-darkness, regarding her with nothing but kindness, as his fingers hovered over hers. It took her a while to realise what he wanted to do. Nodding, her heart in her mouth, she watched as he lifted her palms to the light. 

They looked worse under the harsh white light of her dorm room, under the naked bulbs of the apartment she never called home. But never as bad as they did in front of him. 

Puckered scars crisscrossed the skin, interrupting the palm lines with their jagged harshness. They had healed so badly that you could still see where the stitch marks had been, where the skin had been hastily pulled together. She couldn't bring herself to look at them for long – they reminded her of times better forgotten, and people that she would rather not have in her life ever again. 

But Combeferre, gentle, sweet Combeferre, hadn't taken his eyes off them. He'd brushed his thumbs softly over one or two of the more prominent ones, but for the most of it had just held her hands in his own, silently. 

“What happened?”

“I can't remember,” she said. And she didn't, if she was being brutally honest with herself. No matter how many times she lay awake in bed trying to remember what happened, that starless night all those years ago. “There's only flashes of colour, sound, and then pain.” 

That night was the last time she'd seen her parents. The next thing she knew was that she was in the A&E, palms covered in bandages, with her brother asleep on the chair beside her bed. She'd told him to go back, but he'd stood his ground. Stubborn boy, with his determined pout and too-long hair almost black with grime. The nurse came back then – told her that somebody had tried to stitch her palms up, and had done so really badly. There was only so much they could do, but the wounds had already begun to heal, the scars permanent. 

When asked where their parents were, she'd kept quiet, made sure Gavroche shut his mouth too. They both had nothing on them except their clothes and about 40 dollars; no identification, nothing. A social worker soon appeared, but they'd sneaked out before anybody noticed. And the rest is history. 

“If we'd stayed in the system, I might have been adopted into a family that could pay for reconstructive surgery,” she said, forcing herself to look at him. “But that would mean losing Gavroche and I couldn't do that. I promised him that we'd stick together no matter what. That I'd look after him and he'd look after me and we'd dive into whatever mess we'd find ourselves in together. We're family.”

This was the first time that Combeferre's silence made her feel uncomfortable. 

“It takes getting used to,” he finally whispered.

“Yeah well, the scars are huge,” she replied, chuckling drily. The long brown lines unnatural against the pink of her palm, the way they creased when she moved her fingers, all augmented under the pale yellow light. All these years later and she still couldn't get over how disgusting they were, how ugly. 

“Well there's that,” he chuckled, startling her out of her thoughts. “But I meant you opening up to me.” A sudden rush of warmth engulfed her as she smiled up at him. This man. 

“Which reminds me, I need to analyse your hands.” He took a deep breath, a little smile playing at the corner of his lips that she wanted to kiss oh so badly, before finally speaking.

“It's uncanny how much of a metaphor they are of your life. How they were once really bad wounds, but they've healed, albeit badly. Tenacity. Strength.”

“You hide them, ashamed of how they look, afraid of the questions. Not even looking at them yourself, considering how you flinched when you took the gloves off. Insecurity.”

He paused then, taking in her stiff shoulders and set jaw. His voice grew gentle. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” she replied softly. “Please don't. I need to hear this.”

After making sure that she wasn't going to bolt right for the door, he continued.

“The fact that you could have gotten rid of them, but chose not to because of your brother. Shows how you'd put him before yourself at any given chance. Loyalty. Family. Love.”

He faltered on the last word, his eyes leaving hers for the first time in what seemed forever. 

“The fact that you even showed me at all.” His voice was a whisper now ,the uncertainty returning. “How painful this must be for you, to confront something from your past head on like this. To have me practically analyse your life right here and now without you running away.”

“Why?”

That threw her off. He was looking right at her now, eyes questioning and slightly vulnerable. 

“I trust you.” 

Silence again, the sound of rain soft now against the tile outside. Softer than all the unspoken words inside her own head. The fear still gripping her, holding her back from wrapping her arms around him, showing him what her words couldn't describe. That she would tell him anything, everything about herself if she could get past the darkness within. 

But she kept quiet as she watched his face shift back to the guarded expression that it usually wore, her heart falling.

Courf picked the perfect time to barrel down the stairs, almost dropping his guitar case as he tripped on the carpet in front of the kitchen. The sudden crash and subsequent cursing cracked the bubble they'd unconsciously created around themselves. She stood up immediately, pulling on her gloves in a rush as Jehan also came down the stairs, struggling with a massive amplifier in his thin arms. Combeferre was up in seconds – taking the amp from Jehan just as Bahorel yelled something from his room at the back. The whole house was suddenly alive. 

“Fuckers.” Bahorel had emerged, bass in one hand and a beer in the other. “You said five.”

“It is five,” Combeferre replied, checking his watch. Courf yelped an affirmative from the floor – he'd nearly electrocuted himself while trying to plug in the amp. 

Everybody was trickling in now. Bossuet was next to tumble down the stairs, followed by Musichetta and Joly, the latter clutching his boyfriend's drum sticks in hand as if knowing that he'd fall and break them. Bahorel had dragged in a jet-lagged Feuilly and positioned him in front of the upright piano, only for him to slump forward and fall asleep. Grantaire walked right into the sliding doors before remembering that they were there and how to open them, a bottle of whisky swinging from his fingers, and Enjolras was already leaning on the kitchen arches, smiling openly as he surveyed the scene. 

The knot in her stomach lessened with her friends around her – they created noise and laughter and it helped her forget herself, even if it was for a little while. 'Chetta handed her a mug of tea and Jehan plonked himself on her left and started braiding her hair. The others were arguing now, as they always would before they started playing, over what songs to play and who should play what and Courf wanted Combeferre to play his cello this time so he'd gone into the room and dragged it out, almost scratching it against the door frame. It was chaotic, but comfortably so.

But her eyes followed that head of too-long sandy hair, lingering far too long on his silhouette curved over the cello as he strummed to warm up. Jehan was too busy with her hair and the others were too busy arguing, so they didn't notice when he looked up and met her eyes, their gazes locking for longer than they should have. 

The tenderness in his eyes, his smile, struck her. 

That was the moment she realised that she was a little bit in love with him.

**Author's Note:**

> how dyou do my name's gavroche
> 
> no it isnt u lil shit
> 
> anyway hi my name's meera you may know me from tumblr (combeferrestateofmind.tumblr.com) as that crazy chick that rabidly ships this ship and randomly screams 'COMBEFERRE' into the etherium 
> 
> this is my first proper complete les mis fanfic YAY but you might have read another fic by the lovely pantsoflobster which is set in the same universe - where all the amis live in the same house. this is the brick AU and it's my baby. 
> 
> (if you haven't read alli's fic you should go read it it's perfect and i love her 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/734668)
> 
> if i work up the courage and initiative to write more from this universe it'll be all over the place because i suck at timelines and i have so many disjointed stories about this au so
> 
> hope you enjoyed this and i love you :D


End file.
